Let the Sun Be Your Guide
by Laziness Incarnate
Summary: Soujiro, Kenshin, Kenji. Sixteen years of wandering. A sunset.


**Let the Sun Be Your Guide**

Soujiro assumes, when he first sees the boy, that the sun's dying rays are tricking his eyes--but in a moment the light shifts, or perhaps Soujiro's eyes adjust, and he sees that it is not so.

He has never seen such impossibly red hair before, save once.

The boy, seeming to sense Soujiro's presence, tenses and turns, eyes him warily. He carries himself with a swordsman's self-awareness, a child's gangly grace. Soujiro has no doubt whose son he has found after all these years of wandering.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for your father," he says.

The boy does not relax his stance at all. If anything, his hand drifts closer to the sword at his side.

"I'm sure a lot of people say this to you," Soujiro continues, "but I'm not looking for trouble. I'm an...old friend, I suppose. Please." He holds his hands out, shows the boy that he holds no weapon, though the rucksack he carries across his shoulder is surely no assurance, as it should not be.

The boy still has not said a word, save through his stance and his eyes. A swordsman indeed.

But the sun is setting, and Soujiro fears that he will not be able to meet Himura-san before the day is done, so he tries another tactic.

"What if I tell you that I am a merchant?"

"And what if I tell you you're a liar," replies the boy, speaking for the first time.

Soujiro laughs. "You look like him but your personality is completely different."

"Of course I'm different!" The boy bristles, then checks himself. "How did you find me?"

Soujiro looks at that red hair again.

"I'm afraid you're cursed to always attract trouble," he says cheerfully. "And isn't it what you wish for? You're too young to remember the Bakamatsu, or the Satsuma Rebellion, or the secret war waged by Shishio Makoto--too young to remember anything but peace--yet still you carry a sword at your side."

He sees those childish eyes widen just a little (the boy still needs training, if he gives himself away so easily) at the name of Shishio Makoto. "So you know of my late master, at least," continues Soujiro.

"I know you," the boy accuses, angry now instead of merely wary. "You are the one who went free. The one they called the Sword of Heaven, the only man to surpass the godspeed of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu."

Oh yes, there is righteous anger in this one, but also the tremble of anticipation. He is not like me, thinks Soujiro, nor is he quite like Himura-san, but he will make the same mistakes. A curse indeed.

Soujiro speaks carefully now. "I was indeed the boy--not a man yet--who carried that name. Perhaps...I should not meet your father after all. It has been a very long time."

The boy shakes his head ever so slightly.

"No, I think he will want to meet you."

The boy turns and starts walking, expecting Soujiro to follow. He is arrogant and too confident in his own abilities. Soujiro thinks how easy it would be to draw the sword from his rucksack, or slide the knife in his sleeve to his hand, or even to wrap his hands around that slender neck. It is an instinctual calculation, and Soujiro knows by now that nothing can erase this part of him.

He would rather not think of such things. Soujiro stares at the long red hair trailing down the boy's back in a samurai's topknot (how old-fashioned!), and wonders how it is possible that the colour has not faded at all, passed down from father to son. There is nothing in the mother's blood to dull it.

"Wait here," the boy says when they've reached the riverbank, leaving Soujiro behind.

He does not mind the wait. The sunset is beautiful here, the river water distilling the light into vivid colours and fluid shapes. It reminds him of blood, how easily it flows, how beautifully it dissipates.

Red is the colour of the devil, Shishio-sama once said. Red is the colour of a nation torn by war, the strong devouring the weak, a hitokiri's blood, a cross-scar.

"Red does not become him," Shishio said of the Battousai after their first meeting. "Not anymore."

Soujiro thought so too, at first.

Finally, finally, he sees Himura-san approaching, the sun at his back, his son at his side. They share the same angular face, the strange eyes, the hair that is starker than autumn leaves. There is grey mixed among the red of Himura's hair now, but somehow the colour is more vibrant than ever. A trick of the light, a trick of the sunset.

Himura does not carry a sword.

"It's been a long time," says the man, predictably enough.

Soujiro tilts his head to the side and smiles. "Has it been so long?"

In reply, Himura looks to his son. "This is Kenji. Kenji, this man is Seta Soujiro, whom you know of."

"He carries a sword in his rucksack," Kenji cuts in. "I am sure it's not a reverse-blade." He names his father's old sword with a hint of derision.

Himura nods and asks plainly, "Have you come to avenge your master?"

"I'm not here for revenge. I simply chanced upon your son, and wanted to know what became of you."

He sees Himura's shoulders relax, and even Kenji's scowl abates for a moment.

"Thank you," Himura murmurs, sounding tired. "There were many who came for revenge. I had wondered...what had become of you as well."

Soujiro does not know how to reply. He is no longer a killer by trade, but he can still kill--indeed, _has_ killed--when the need is great. He is not Himura Kenshin, he has sworn no oath.

He is tied to no one, and to nothing.

"Indeed, what has become of me?" he wonders aloud.

Himura's eyes--the only part of him that has not aged--are still as sharp as ever.

"I suppose that is for you to decide."

Soujiro feels a familiar smile stretching across his face. "Ah, Himura-san, I've always hated that about you. Once again you put the burden of my own life on me."

"But your life is not your own," says Kenji unexpectedly, his voice bitter. "It never is."

Soujiro turns the full force of his smile on the boy. "I am a rurouni. I am beholden to no one."

"How fortunate."

"No one?" asks Himura.

Soujiro merely looks at him.

Himura returns his gaze steadily. "One day the wanderer must find a home, or else he can no longer remember why he began to wander."

"But if the wanderer only ever had one home, and that home was destroyed..."

"Then he must find another, no matter how dangerous the journey might be, or how long."

"It never ends, does it?"

"Not as long as a heart beats in this body.

Soujiro's eyes crinkle shut. "But I think we can let the sun go down now."

Himura-san is smiling too, but he is not looking at Soujiro. He is looking at his son. "If only we could."

Kenji glances at his father, then at Soujiro.

"You are both so very foolish," he says angrily. "There is no place for vagabonds in this world. There are too many things happening to waste time the way you old men do. Father, I'm going home. I'll tell mother where you are."

"Kenji--"

"I won't say anything about Seta-san."

The boy is already walking away.

"I think he wanted to see us fight," suggests Soujiro once Kenji is too far away to hear.

"I know exactly what he wishes to do, for I once followed that path."

"I never thought you would have a child, Himura-san."

Soujiro hears the other man sigh, just the smallest exhalation of breath. "He brings me more happiness than any other, and more pain as well. It is far more difficult to be a parent than a swordsman."

"To live beholden to someone else, right?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes I wish I had never met you, Himura-san."

Himura, surprisingly, laughs quietly. "I can understand that sentiment. But you don't mean it, do you?"

"I don't know," says Soujiro. "Maybe I do. I often think that my trial must soon be at an end, but..."

"But I am a harsh teacher, and I will not let you rest."

"I suppose I should thank you for that, but I find it hard to."

"That's fine," Himura says. "I know you must have had a hard life, these sixteen years. But you should know that you are always welcome at my home."

Soujiro shakes his head. "I'm afraid I must decline, Himura-san. Perhaps another time."

"I understand. And now I must beg your leave, for the sun will set soon and I must see to my family."

"Of course."

Soujiro bows. He closes his eyes as he does so but he cannot close his ears. He hears the rustle of grass, the faint shift of Himura's footsteps. He lifts his head and watches Himura until he has almost disappeared, a red speck disappearing into the sun.

Red is the devil's colour, Shishio Makoto once said, and Soujiro has not found anything to contradict this lesson. But Himura Kenshin taught him that it is more than that; it is warmth, it is pain, it is a smile that does not mean nothing.

Why is it, Soujiro wonders, I am not stained red as well?

-End-

A/N: I am incapable of writing unpretentious RK fic.


End file.
